1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electric rotating machine with means for feeding coolant to its stator winding.
2. Description of Related Art
Japanese Patent No. 3672846 discloses a vehicle-mounted alternator including a stator having an annular stator core formed with slots and a stator winding wound on the stator core, the stator winding having 6 phase windings wound along the slots, each of the 6 phase windings being formed by connecting two phase coils spaced by 30 degrees in electrical angle by their interphase crossover portions, the interphase crossover portions being arranged to have a distance from the coil end of the stator winding in the axial direction of the stator and shifted from one another in the circumferential direction so as not to overlap with one another in the radial direction, each of the interphase crossover portions being constituted by a conductive wire drawn from the phase coil and a connecting member which connects the conductive wires of the same phase coil to each other at a position axially distant from the coil end.
In this alternator, cooling air blows between the stator and the rotor to cool the stator winding and other components. Further, the above described arrangement of the interphase crossover portions makes it possible to suppress increase of the air resistance of the cooling air passages in the alternator.
However, if liquid is used as a coolant instead of gas (the cooling air), since a large part of the liquid passes through the interphase crossover portions, and accordingly, the liquid does not spread all over the stator winding, the cooling performance of the alternator becomes insufficient.